


Shiny Things

by Michelle Christian (movies_michelle)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-25
Updated: 2010-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:08:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/movies_michelle/pseuds/Michelle%20Christian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a little focused on something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shiny Things

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the body modification (e.g., tattoos and piercings) challenge on the lj comm sga_flashfic back in December 2006. Thanks to merricatk and z_rayne for their beta work on this, my first SGA story.

John was man enough to admit he'd started it all himself. Well, not all of it. Certainly not the part that Rodney had started, but John was the one who had brought up the subject.

It had started the way many of these things seemed to: sitting around yet another campfire on yet another green and wet world.

"I just don't get the point of tattoos," John said, trying to back out of a conversation that had gotten away from him.

"On Sateda, you'd get one after your first tour," Ronon pointed out. John thought about where Ronon might have a tattoo, but curbed his urge to ask.

"I have found that body modification is a very common form of self-expression among many peoples," Teyla said in that reasonable way that always made John want to sit up straighter. There were times Teyla reminded him of Ms. Peterson, his grade school math teacher. Only 100 times hotter.

Rodney snorted. "Yes, the common man's art."

Teyla looked at Rodney in surprise. "I have seen several of your people with such artwork."

"Sure, a lot of guys have them, but a lot of guys get things pierced I wouldn't want a needle anywhere near, too," John pointed out.

Rodney started to say something, then stopped. John found this a strange bit of self-censorship from a man who had no internal censor.

"Let me guess, you have Newton's laws tattooed on your ass," he said with a smirk.

Rodney rolled his eyes, which was much more like him. "Yes, complete with diagrams and formulae," he told John. "No, I don't have any tattoos. The odds of hepatitis alone...."

"Do you have a piercing?" Ronon suddenly asked. Everyone turned to look at him. He shrugged. "Just seems to me he has something, and if it's not a tattoo...."

John thought he knew when Ronon was kidding, and would have bet that Ronon was just trying to tease Rodney, but Rodney was reacting so weirdly that.... "You do not have a nipple ring," John said emphatically.

"Well, of course I don't!" Rodney agreed. He still looked uncomfortable, though, and refused to even glance in John's direction.

John shook his head. "You don't have anything," he said confidently.

"That's what I said...wait, what makes you think I don't?" Rodney asked, looking back through narrowed eyes.

"You're not the type." He was using his most insufferable tone, knowing how much it got under Rodney's skin.

"What type is that?" Rodney demanded. "What, you don't think I'm cool enough? I am so cool enough to have a piercing!"

"Yeah, you're a badass, McKay," John said, insincerely.

"For your information, Colonel Cool, I do have a piercing," Rodney insisted.

"Sure you do."

"I do!"

"Uh-huh."

"I do!"

John turned and looked him in the eye. "Okay, where?" he asked, calling Rodney's bluff.

"In my--" Rodney suddenly stopped. "That's personal. I don't want to talk about it."

John did a quick visual sweep of Rodney's body. If he believed Rodney, there were only a few piercing options. And it was obviously in an embarrassing place. He didn't think even Rodney was that embarrassed by his own nipples, which left him with one option. John's eyes dropped to Rodney's lap.

Rodney shifted uncomfortably again and looked away.

"You are so full of shit," John said, at a higher pitch than he knew was manly. He didn't care all that much because Rodney was such a big fat liar.

Ronon looked between them. "Where is it?" he asked.

"No place!" Rodney insisted, but now John was convinced. Even if he could hardly believe it.

John looked at Teyla and felt oddly reticent. She could drink him under the table—and she wasn't the first woman he'd met since joining the Air Force he could say that about—but he could still hear his father in his head talking about the kinds of things you did and did not say around women. "He's saying he's pierced through his...you know," John said, unable to say it, but making what he thought was a very eloquent gesture vaguely downward.

"Where?" Ronon said, and John wasn't sure if he was now trying to torture him or if he really didn't get the eloquent language of hand gestures.

"His...you know," he said, waving his hand some more. He cut his eyes towards Teyla, who still seemed interested.

"Do you mean his penis?" she asked.

John hated that he could still blush, and hoped it was dark enough to hide it. "Um," he said.

"That is not that unusual, John. It is not entirely common, but I have known men from various cultures to have a piercing through the head of their penis," she said calmly.

John was shifting uncomfortably now. "Please don't say that."

"Why?" Teyla asked, her forehead creasing in that way it did when she was puzzled.

"For more reasons than I can explain," he said, and turned back to Rodney, who seemed to be enjoying John's discomfort and the shift of focus away from himself. Something had to be done about that. "You can't be pierced there, I've seen you in the shower," John said, successfully turning the conversation back where it belonged.

"It comes out, you idiot," Rodney returned, not looking nearly as uncomfortable. Apparently, as long as he wasn't the only one feeling embarrassed, he could work through it. John should have known. "Besides, why were you looking?" he asked, sounding suspicious.

"I wasn't looking!"

"You just said you knew because you'd seen me! You had to have looked!"

"You stand in a communal shower, you glance around."

"Do you give all your male comrades visual inspections? Does Lorne have any moles?" Rodney asked accusingly.

"I do not--" John stopped, knowing this wasn't going to end well. "Look, we're talking about you right now."

"Yeah, about that, doesn't your obsession with my penis seem a little odd?" Rodney asked.

"I am not a obsessed with your--"

"You seem a little obsessed," Ronon said, looking very amused at the two of them. Teyla also seemed to be torn between laughing and wanting to get away from the crazy people, but he'd seen that look from her before.

"You're not helping," he told Ronon. Turning back to Rodney he explained, he thought perfectly reasonably, "I just find it strange that anyone would want to pierce--that."

Rodney looked even more uncomfortable, and shifted yet again. Which just made John want to look at the area in question, but he didn't.

"Didn't it...hurt?" John asked, trying to keep his eyes above waist-level.

"Of course it hurt! They were inserting a sharp object into a very tender part of my anatomy," Rodney told him as if he had just had to explain the definition of pi to him.

"Why would you.... Why?" John felt like his brain was never going to recover. "You can't stand needles! You practically call the cops whenever one of the nurses tries to draw blood, screaming about hygiene and vampires; I just can't see you going into a piercing parlor run by a guy named Spike."

Rodney looked at him as if he'd just drooled on his shirt. "What the hell television are you watching?"

John didn't try to explain. "I mean, really, you don't trust Zelenka with your coffee mug, but you'd trust a stranger to...."

"He wasn't a stranger!" Rodney shouted. He must have realized how high his volume had gotten by the amount of wildlife that went scurrying away into the woods, because a little more quietly he said, "Look, I was drunk and he was hot. It's the reason for a lot of mistakes I've made."

There was silence for a moment.

"Can we see it?" Ronon asked. John didn't see Teyla step on Ronon's foot, but he did see Ronon's eyes slide over to her with a small smile. "What? They brought it up."

"No, you can't see it! It's not the Mona Lisa, you can't sell tickets to it!" It was hard to tell in the firelight, but John was pretty sure he was blushing, which would have been worth seeing all on its own.

And that was, of course, when the villagers they had thought were friendly started to attack them.

They had noticed when they approached the village the previous afternoon that there were very few women in evidence. According to the village leader, during the last culling the Wraith had found the cave where they had sent their women to be safe. For some reason, John was still surprised when the villagers attacked them and tried to run off with Teyla.

He wondered sometimes if they were considered the "special" class of the Pegasus galaxy.

Fortunately, they were able to get away relatively easily, Teyla getting in some pretty good licks and their gunfire insisting that, no thank you, Teyla was not interested in helping re-populate. The main injury, aside from a few scrapes and bruises, actually resulted from an "accident" involving Rodney's eye and Teyla's elbow after they made it back to the puddle jumper.

"Ow!" Rodney yelped again as he felt around his eye, waiting for Carson to finish with the others and give them the go to leave. "I don't see why I'm always the one most injured on our little adventures."

John, from his vantage point of the next bed over, decided to skip the blatant inaccuracy of this statement and went straight for the heart of the matter. "Maybe if you hadn't started shouting about her being sterile. And stop poking at it, you're only hurting yourself."

"I was trying to help!" Rodney said indignantly. The worst--or possibly best, depending on how you took your entertainment--was that John knew he had been.

"And that she's built like a boy," John continued.

Rodney's voice went up another volume level in his indignation. "Again, helping. Besides, look at those hips. Those are not child-bearing hips."

Teyla was sitting on the other end of the infirmary, but John knew how well Rodney's voice carried. He could also see one or two Marines standing around involuntarily glance at the hips in question and he winced. He knew that Teyla would be coming to him later today to suggest certain people might be helped by taking extra "training sessions" with her, and he wasn't about to stand in her way.

"As much as I'm sure she appreciates your…gallantry, McKay, I'd steer clear of Teyla for a little while if I were you," John warned him.

"I was just--"

John held up his hand. "She knows where you're pierced now, remember."

Rodney carefully crossed his legs while glancing across the room at Teyla.

They sat in silence for several seconds before John couldn't take it anymore. "So, how big is it?" he asked, and Rodney looked at him, completely puzzled. "Your--" He fell back on his elegant hand gestures.

Rodney sat straighter. "Perfectly big enough, thank you," he said, affronted.

"Not that!" John told him. "Your--" and he leaned over and whispered, "piercing."

Rodney looked around while flapping his hands much less elegantly, as if that wouldn't draw attention. Fortunately, everyone else seemed more interested in Teyla and Ronon. "Do we have to talk about this here? Or anywhere else, ever again?"

"I'm curious. Have you ever set off a metal detector?" John asked, going for casual, but not sure it worked when you were whispering furtively.

"It's a single ring, Colonel, not a shower rod," McKay told him exasperatedly. "Don't you have better things to do than discuss your comrade's body jewelry?"

"Doesn't it...snag?" John asked, still whispering.

"What?" Rodney said, obviously puzzled.

John fell back on his elegant hand gestures. "I don't see how...."

"Look," Rodney said, obviously hoping to end the conversation as soon as possible. Like maybe yesterday. "It doesn't snag. It's not like it's barbed! It's very...aerodynamic."

John blinked at him. "If you're actually throwing it, you're even kinkier than I thought."

"It's made to glide, okay?" Rodney gritted out between his teeth. "I've certainly not had any complaints about it. Quite the contrary."

And then Carson came over, rescuing Rodney and leaving John to think about things he didn't really want to think about.

After being released from the infirmary, John went back to his daily routine. The problem was, he couldn't stop thinking about Rodney's piercing. It was just so not like him. It was the kind of thing cool people did, people with edge. Rodney was edgy, to be sure, but he was not exactly Johnny Rotten edgy. Although John knew he could spit at people with deadly accuracy if was called for, so perhaps that wasn't a good comparison.

He shouldn't be thinking about this. It wasn't like he cared, he insisted to himself as he tried to work on mission reports that didn't mention tattoos or anyone's penis. It was just that telling himself not to think about it was tantamount to thinking, "Don't think about a Wraith in a tutu and pasties." Once you told yourself that, all you'd be able to imagine would be Michael standing there, ready for Showgirls 2.

Unfortunately, John found that no matter how much he tried--and he told himself his attempts were heroic--he couldn't think about the piercing without also thinking about what it was piercing. John told himself it was just placing the object in its natural habitat. What did Rodney look like? Was he average size? Would the ring make him look bigger or smaller?

And the one thought that made him leave his desk in frustration and just decide he was going to have to give Elizabeth a good excuse for not getting these reports on time instead was: How would it feel?

John went for a walk, and before he knew it he was at Rodney's lab. It was late--late enough that most of the science team, who didn't exactly keep banker's hours, had gone back to their quarters.

Everyone but Rodney.

Johnny quietly came up behind him and said, "So, is it silver?"

Rodney did not jump up, as John expected, but did start banging his head against the table, which was rewarding enough on its own. Then Rodney turned to glare at him. "What the hell do I have to stop this new obsession with my piercing?" he asked. Pleaded. It was a nice sound.

John took another step forward. "Show me," he said, though that wasn't what he'd planned on saying. Not that his brain had been doing much in the following orders line recently.

"What?" Rodney looked not-quite attractively like a goldfish for a moment, before he shut his mouth with a click of teeth and then clenched his jaw. "Oh, I'm sure that will be very amusing to you. Then you and Ronon can laugh at--"

John took a final step towards Rodney, putting his hand on Rodney's shoulders and said, from deep in his throat, "Show me."

Then he kissed Rodney.

This was something that, before this moment, he'd never seriously thought about. Not with Rodney. But he was tired of fighting his brain and his instinct today, and decided he'd see where it would take him.

And he really, really did want to see that ring.

He let Rodney up for air. "Oh," was all Rodney said as he stood up, looking more dazed and speechless than John had ever seen him.

John decided it was a good look for him.

 

They made it back to Rodney's quarters in relatively quick order. Nothing too overt, just a couple of team members, pals even, walking through the corridors late at night, winding down after a stressful mission. The few people they passed in the hall nodded hello, but didn't say anything or give them strange looks, so John accepted that they had no idea what was going on under their clothes.

What was under Rodney's clothes.

When they got through Rodney's door, and it had slid closed and they both heard the lock catch, Rodney turned around swiftly, pressing John back with his own kisses.

"I didn't know. I didn't--" he said between kisses, and John couldn't argue. He hadn't really known, either, so how could Rodney? Rodney seemed desperate now, though, like he was afraid John would change his mind or start laughing like it was all a joke and walk away.

John wasn't the best strategist, but he knew when a full-frontal assault was necessary to show you meant business.

He clutched back at Rodney, taking off Rodney's shirt and undershirt. Rodney seemed less coordinated than normal, so John concentrated on not laughing and backing them towards the bed. When he felt it right behind him, he pushed Rodney slightly away and dropped down to his knees, slowly dragging Rodney's pants and underwear down together.

As he'd told everyone earlier, he'd seen Rodney naked before. Communal showers happen, especially on military bases in Antarctica, as does the occasional glance, not necessarily because you're cruising for anything, but because it's what you do. Compare and contrast. Who really does have the biggest set, and was Sergeant Brooks just blowing smoke when he talked about his own exploits. That kind of thing. He'd never really looked at Rodney for more than that, though. He'd noticed Rodney had lost weight over the last couple of years--stress, long hours, and off-world missions couldn't help but have some effect. Now, close-up and in a situation he never expected to find himself in, he let himself admire the changes in Rodney. He'd never be a hardbody or have rippling abs--John worked out every day and didn't have the kind of diet Rodney had, and he didn't have a six-pack--but Rodney's body was nice, and firmer in places than he expected. It was a good body, one he had protected many times and one that had saved him more than once, and that made it all the better. All the hotter.

Then he noticed the thing that had brought them here tonight.

As Rodney had said, it wasn't overly large. It was just a small, silver ring, set up rather snugly against his cockhead. Even if Rodney had had it in before in the shower, John might not have noticed it--except it caught the light in flashes and John felt mesmerized.

Rodney moved his hips to the left. John's eyes moved to the left.

Rodney bent his knees. John looked down.

"Oh my God, you're like a magpie! It's your new shiny thing," Rodney groaned, and tried to cover his groin with his hands.

"What?" John asked, wondering when wanting something belonging to the person you were about to have sex with became a bad thing.

"You're only interested in me for my piercing!" Rodney said indignantly.

John thought about making a comment about Rodney being easy, but he didn't think that would actually move them in the direction he wanted this to go. "Rodney--"

"You're in thrall to it," Rodney accused.

John blinked. "I am not in thr--"

"Oh, yes you are," Rodney insisted, walking away with his hands still covering his groin. "You're completely in thrall!"

John decided to go for pleading. "Rodney...."

"You have decided to fetishize me!"

All right, this called for being a little more firm. "Rodney."

"And it's not even me! You fixated on something else!"

Fuck this. "McKay!"

That shut him up. Mostly. "All I'm saying is I'm not making you wear your thigh holster to bed," he grumbled.

"All I'm saying is which would you rather do: get laid because of a fetish or not at all?"

Rodney looked at him a moment. "Good point," he said, and jumped him.

Maybe John would tell him later that it really wasn't about the ring so much anymore.

Maybe.

They had fallen back on the bed, and Rodney was on top of him. They rubbed against each other and continued the kisses, which Rodney seemed to be appreciating if the noises he was making were anything to go by. John was prepared to enjoy them in the moment and tease Rodney about them mercilessly later until he realized at least some of the noises were him, and decided to be nice and let it go.

Rodney somehow had found his coordination and managed to get John's clothes off with a minimum of fuss. Rodney's hands were everywhere then, his fingers callused in odd places, but firm and sure as they splayed across John's skin. John had watched him at work before, those broad hands typing or working on a circuit board or checking out the jumper controls. Rodney never seemed a particularly tactile man, but very precise--no wasted movement--when he was working. John had wondered before what Rodney would be like in bed, idly, as he watched him work. Idle thoughts, he'd told himself, like wondering if Mrs. Henderson in fifth period actually had ever been laid in her life. He'd never thought about Mrs. Henderon in such detail, though. He'd assumed Rodney would go straight for the necessary points, little foreplay, no savoring. Either that or Rodney would be so nervous and frantic that it would turn out more like a comedy routine than an erotic moment. John realized now he'd been completely wrong on all fronts.

Also, maybe it had never been about the ring.

"God, Rodney," John gasped as he pulled back from the kisses, taking deep breaths, then taking one much bigger breath as Rodney's fingers moved down and behind his balls. A part of him wanted to question Rodney as to why he assumed John would be on the bottom, but most of him beat that part of him quiet. "Fuck, yeah," he said instead, as Rodney produced a tube of lubricant from somewhere.

And that was a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time. Sure fingers entering him, wanting to give him pleasure and preparing the way for something that would give him much more pleasure.

"Oh, God," Rodney gasped, leaning down again to kiss him, his fingers never stopping their movement. "I never thought," he mumbled into John's mouth. "John." Fingers found just the right spot and John clamped his legs tight around Rodney's body, trying not to come.

"Rodney, you better get to this quick," he warned, and pushed Rodney back, as his legs reluctantly let him go.

"Right, right," Rodney said, sitting back on his heels and proceeding to roll on a condom, which had come from the same place, presumably, as the lube. As the thin latex stretched down Rodney's length, John saw the flash of metal through it once again, and clamped a hand around himself.

"Wait, are you sure--?" John started to ask, but didn't know what he was going to say next, just knowing he was eager and anxious.

"What? Really, it will be fine. You'll like it! Everyone likes it," Rodney insisted, and leaned over him again.

"It's just.... Do you think the condom will hold?"

"I promise to pull out," Rodney said, pulling back again and looking exasperated. More exasperated. "I can take the ring out, if you'd rather--"

"No!" John blinked at his own insistence. "Um, that's okay."

All right, so it wasn't entirely about the ring.

When Rodney entered him, he was torn between concentrating on the sensations--was that it? Could he feel it yet?--and the look of wonder on Rodney's face as he stared down at John. John had seen that expression before, but only when Rodney had found a new piece of technology in some previously unexplored part of Atlantis. Rodney hadn't looked like that in a while, too wrapped up in failures and the pure work of staying alive. It was an amazingly good look on him, and John couldn't help moan in pleasure.

"I didn't know," he said, unconsciously echoing Rodney's earlier words. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated on the sensations, which were easier to deal with than that look of pure joy.

He could feel the ring, at least he thought he could. He was almost certain he could feel it, sliding along inside of him, but he couldn't be sure how much of it was real and how much of it was his own imagination. The smooth breadth of Rodney, and the one slightly colder point of contact with the metal. Then it hit his prostate and he was sure, opening his eyes in surprise and staring up at Rodney again.

And then it clicked in John's head: Rodney was looking at him the way he looked at a ZPM.

He came on the spot.

Rodney thrust several more times, gaze locked on John as if still not sure how they got there but not stupid enough to question it. When he came, he shut his eyes, and John was almost thankful for it.

A few minutes later, John panted up at the ceiling. "Okay, that worked for me," he said.

Rodney collapsed on his back beside him. "Me, too."

They laid there, next to each other, a couple of points of contact between them as they each caught their breath.

"Hey," Rodney finally said, still sounding slightly winded, which John was glad of. He'd hate to think Rodney had better recovery time than he did.

"Hey," John said, turning his head to smile back. He wasn't sure what happened next. What awkwardness might ensue. Rodney, though, didn't seem concerned at all, and those fingers that had been inside of him just a little while ago now traced an unknown pattern above John's left nipple.

"Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo?"

\--30--


End file.
